Ecosystem knowledge

European ecosystems: knowledge on their state and functioning

Client: ECNC

This contract supported the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 (COM(2011) 244 final) by evaluating the knowledge about quantitative impacts of drivers and pressures on ecosystems and their biodiversity.

The headline target overarching the Strategy reads as: ‘Halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, and restoring them in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss.’

The Strategy responds to both EU and global mandates, setting the EU on the right track to meet its own biodiversity objectives and its global commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).